Court orders Sexual assault victim to pay abuser's wife $20,000 in damages

Forum 10 months ago

Court orders Sexual assault victim to pay abuser's wife $20,000 in damages

A Japanese court has ordered a woman to pay damages to the wife of the man she accused of sexual assault since their relationship may have breached the country’s civil code.

Meiko Sano filed a lawsuit against her professor for sexual assault after ending a decade-long relationship with him.

Sano in the lawsuit argued that Michio Hayashi, an art history professor of the Department of Liberal Arts at Sophia University, had taken advantage of his position over her to initiate a relationship to which she never consented.

When the relationship began, Sano was 23 and Hayashi was 48, and she accused him of grooming her for sex. Their relationship started out purely academic, but it soon changed as he invited her to more private meetings, which Sano said she felt unable to refuse.